Mad Moon
by Casira
Summary: Presumed headline in the A-M Times: Werewolf's Boyfriend Walks On Moon; Angst Ensues. My take on Angua's reaction to the events of The Last Hero....
1. Chapter 1

Well... 'tis my first submission to ff.n, and my first fanfic in about ten years, so we'll see how this goes. ;) I was recently inspired by rereading _The Last Hero_, and thinking of what Angua's reaction must have been to Carrot landing on, of all places, the moon... I'd think this sort of thing would seriously mess with a werewolf's head. The below is the result.

Note that this contains a whole lot of spoilers for _The Last Hero, _and it's best if you read that for purposes of understanding the backstory before diving into this. (There's a reason I don't subject you to Vimes' summary to Angua of what's going on. Terry did that already.) The short form, if you must: Cohen the Barbarian has decided to go out with the proverbial bang, and return the fire that was stolen from the gods eons ago. The trouble is, the explosion he plans will destroy the Disc's magical field and end the Discworld as we know it. Enter our intrepid heroes: Leonard of Quirm, inventor of the flying machine that's the only way of getting to Dunmanifestin in time; Rincewind, the wizard who knows Cohen and seems to survive everything thrown at him; and, of course, Captain Carrot of the City Watch, who probably needs no introduction. 

I'm not giving away much in pointing out that they _are_ successful in saving the day. But this story's about what happens on the world below, before and after the crisis.

PG-13 for some violence, described and implied, and some serious angst. ;)

* * *

_Full-moon Monday...._

_City smog whirled the light above her into enticing abstractions. Street-level smells crowded her senses and tugged at her instincts. The monochromatic night looked sharper, more real, than anything she saw by day through human eyes. Beneath her feet, she could feel the city's pulse._

_But a subtle arrythmia made her pause._

_Something here felt off-kilter; something was out of balance, tilted, subtly skewed. The air, somehow, felt as if it were holding its breath._

_She lifted her sensitive nose and sniffed the wind. __Nothing worse than Ankh-Morpork's usual fumes, she thought. Not on the surface. But there's something else --__ something that almost felt touched with sulphur._

_She turned her head, peering into the distance, but nothing suspicious -- at least for Ankh-Morpork's usual value of "suspicious" -- was anywhere to be seen. The city, as much as it ever was, was quiet._

_Until she heard a faint, far-off howl._

_She listened to its echo for a moment. If she'd been in human form just then, she would have frowned. She was used to the tone of the canine chain of communications, but not to messages this cryptic: _

_The Horde is ascending...._

_She padded forward, straining for anything else, but the howl had faded into silence, and had anyway been overpowered by the nearby sound of someone hollering, "Stop! Unlicensed thief!"_

_Angua snorted out a breath and turned around to follow the trail. Duty, as always, calls...._

  
  


Morning dawned cloudless, if not exactly clear, and Angua woke up to it earlier than she'd hoped, with a long yawn. In one slow stretch, she pulled her arms up above her head and pointed her toes, forcing each muscle to re-adjust to their human shapes. And then her growling stomach -- feeling the effects of last night's exercise -- made its own demands to go find food. She decided to take the hint.

The Watch house when she got there was crowded as usual with people coming on and off shifts, and grabbing breakfast in the canteen before going out onto their beats. Angua peered at the tables and tried not to think too hard about some of the meal selections. Dwarves, trolls, and the assorted other beings who worked here tended to prefer the sorts of things people called exterminators for; Angua didn't even eat meat by choice.

At least when she wasn't on four paws.

A lingering hint of last night's appetite still made the sausage smell appetizing -- although, fortunately, not the rat. Angua pinched the bridge of her nose and moved toward a safer smell: eggs and toast, and oranges, and....

Well, that other smell wasn't what you'd call _appealing,_ but at least she knew who it belonged to.

"Morning, Nobby," she said. 

The allegedly human Watchman raised his gaze from his plate and grinned at her. "Hey, Sergeant."

Fred Colon, sitting across from Nobby, waved at her with a piece of toast in one hand. "Morning! Wasn't expecting you in until later...."

"Couldn't sleep," she said, rubbing her hair with one hand. She still felt a bit... wolfy. The days around the full moon were always a bit dodgy for this form, and she still felt oddly tense.... 

"So how was patrol?"

She sat down and thought about that for a moment, staring off into the middle distance; it was partially to avoid the sight of Nobby shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth at record speed. "Uneventful," she said at last. "Except I feel like something was brewing... not sure what...."

She frowned, sighed, and scratched the back of her neck. She realized she was sniffing absently for something that wasn't there: that familiar, astringently-clean scent that inevitably meant their Watch captain."Has Carrot come in?"

Fred flicked a glance at Nobby, who paused with his fork halfway down from his mouth, and muttered around the eggs,"Haven't seen 'im."

Fred scrubbed his hands absently on his pant legs. "He was in that meeting yesterday at the Palace--"

"Yeah, I know," Angua said, a bit distantly. A worry was beginning to prick at her.

"Mister Vimes was there, too. He came back later in the evening -- you were, uh, out by then -- but I haven't seen Carrot...."

Angua had taken a glance up the stairs when she came in. At the top was Vimes's office. The door was usually open (or in fact absent), but this morning he'd pulled it halfway closed.

Something was definitely happening.

Her appetite began to drain away, but she glanced around for something to eat regardless as Fred said, "Probably just a special assignment. I'm sure he'll be around."

Oh, of course. A special assignment. The sort Carrot would feel duty-bound to carry out to the ultimate best of his ability, wherever it might take him... and whatever it might involve....

Angua gulped down something she vaguely recognized as bread, and perhaps juice of some sort, before excusing herself and heading for the steps.

Nobby looked at Fred when she'd gone. "Wonder if she knows anything?"

Fred was staring at his plate and empty glass. Angua had absently relieved him of half his breakfast.

"Oh, just get another plate, Fred," Nobby muttered.

Fred shoved the last few crumbs around with his fork and heaved a sigh before answering Nobby's question. "Hard to say. Maybe she can get something out of Old Stoneface, if it has to do with Carrot...."

"He wouldn't tell you what was going on at the Patrician's, would he?"

"Not a word."

"Think we could get her to spill if she finds out?"

Fred Colon's highly-tuned sense of self-preservation waved its flag of warning. "At this time of the month," he said, thinking of her glinting incisors digging into his toast, "I wouldn't push her."

  
  


Angua knocked twice on the half-open door before saying, somewhat hesitantly, "Excuse me -- Mister Vimes..."

There was an indrawn breath, slowly released. "Come in, Sergeant."

Angua pushed open the door to see her Watch commander sitting at a preternaturally clean desk. The paperwork was pushed into neat piles, all of them shorter than usual. Sam Vimes sat behind a faint haze of cigar smoke, tapping the end of his pen against one sheet as Angua walked in.

This is not normal, she thought, watching his eyes scan over the words. Not normal at all....

He made a face at whatever the paper said, shook his head once, and scratched his name at the bottom. Then he looked up and rubbed a hand over tired eyes. "Have a seat."

"You haven't slept tonight, have you?" Angua asked, the question barging out before tact could shove it back into the closet.

Vimes returned her gaze, eyes blank, then said, "No, not really. You were out all night too, I'm sure --"

"There's something wrong, sir," she said flatly. "I could sense it. Strange messages on the howl -- 'The Horde is ascending'....?" She let the quote dangle. Vimes didn't take the bait.

"Did anything in particular happen?"

She shifted in her seat. "No, nothing more than usual. I'll -- well, I'll get the report in shortly...."

He waved a dismissive hand. Vimes never minded late reports on full-moon nights; he understood the need to wait for the return of opposable thumbs.

"Don't worry about that." He peered up at Angua's eyes, his gaze almost unbearably sharp, then blinked and returned absently to the paperwork. "I swear this stuff breeds while I'm away. It took me hours to get this far...."

"You don't normally stay up to finish it off, sir."

"I hate leaving unfinished business," he muttered, which, Angua thought in puzzlement, was true, but not usually where things like this were concerned. And then she stopped to think of what that meant. Paperwork went on forever as long as there was a job to do....

"Sir--"

He sighed heavily. "You came to ask about Carrot, didn't you?"

Angua, totally unable to guess where this conversation was going, leaned back in her chair and stared at Vimes for a moment before finally saying, "Yes, sir. He hasn't been in."

"He's gone on a mission for the Patrician," Vimes said. "A very important theft case. Of sorts. He headed out this morning."

"Where to?"

Vimes leaned back and stared at the ceiling, dodging the question by answering a different one. "He's going with Leonard of Quirm and Rincewind -- you don't know him -- wizard famous for surviving all sorts of improbable disasters--"

He stopped and winced as he realized he'd hit exactly the wrong word. Angua's hands clenched around the chair arm. "What on the Disc would require _that_ bunch to work on this case?"

"Angua--" Vimes leaned forward again, his face carefully expressionless. "I probably don't need to tell you that the meetings yesterday were strictly confidential. Confidential of the 'you tell anyone, you wake up in the scorpion pit' variety."

"This is Carrot," she returned sharply. "Our Captain is very mysteriously absent from a city you'd normally have to drag him away from by force, and that's never a good sign."

Unspoken memories of the last time Carrot went dashing out of Ankh-Morpork flashed between Angua and Vimes. He lost the staring contest and gave her a small look of concession.

"There's something going on out there that's worrying you as much as it is me," Angua said. "I don't know what it is. But I think both you and Carrot do. There's nothing normal that would make you clear the decks like this -- you look like you're preparing for the--"

She saw the look in his eyes and stopped dead.

"Sir..." she tried, and trailed off.

There was a moment of empty silence. Finally Vimes said, "You're sure the door is closed?"

Angua glanced behind her. The door was well and truly shut. She nodded mutely and turned back to her commander, who was clearly turning words over and over in his head before speaking.

And then he braced his hands against the edge of the desk, and told her.

## continued in chapter 2.... ##


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2, wherein Angua comes a bit unwound...

* * *

  


The rest of the day passed by in a haze. In fact, despite Vimes' best efforts to present alternatives, it passed in a bar. And then the moon, just shy of full, began to rise, and Angua began to run.

Last night she'd run with a purpose. This time she ran just to get away.

Human thoughts bounced crazily around the wolf brain, too big for even her conscious mind to get a hold of; she just kept hearing fragments, like _fire,_ or _flying ship,_ or _end of the world._

That last one kept coming back, again and again.

She came to a stop before a stoop on a half-empty street, threw her head back, and howled.

Carrot -- throwing himself in front of all this --

"Now there's an unsettling sound," someone said nearby. "That's the sort of howl that'll wake the dead."

Angua moaned deep in her throat as an all-too-familiar dog rounded a corner and gave her a long, searching look. "So what's gnawing at you?" Gaspode asked, answering the question for his own part by absently scratching at fleas.

"I can't...."

"Sure you can. You can tell me anything. I'm good with secrets, me."

She glared at him. The mongrel's expression was open and innocent, but she knew him too well to believe it for a second. After a moment he gave it up and tried on a doggy smirk.

"Okay, maybe I'm too talkative for my own good..." He paused, tilted his head inquisitively, and turned serious. "So what is it, really?"

Angua shook her head and then lowered it between her paws, trying to suppress a whine. "It's all too much.... there's --"

Gaspode threw out a wild guess, which unfortunately happened to be right. "Is this about your man? 'Cause if it is...."

"He's gone off in some flying dragon-powered bird-carrying-a-fish thing with a crazy inventor and a 'wizzard' who can't spell to try to stop a horde of old men from returning fire to the gods, and if he doesn't the whole world's going to end...."

The sentence spilled out almost too fast to follow, and ended in the desperate whine Angua had been hoping she wouldn't make. Gaspode stared at her as she fought to calm down. "Okay," he said slowly, "I thought I was good with words and all, but the only part I understood there was the part I didn't want to."

Angua shuddered. "You're not... the only one."

Gaspode settled down next to Angua, trying awkwardly to express comfort. "Well, if you want someone to try to stop the end of -- well, the.... something that big, I can't think of anyone better than Carrot."

She shut her eyes. Some part of her agreed with that, but it was getting overruled by the part that was spinning in frantic circles of terror. Vimes had told her just how Carrot's crew was going to get to the Hub. Somehow, even compared to the gods themselves, that part was what truly scared her, too much for her to verbalize it at all....

Gaspode was shifting tactics now, his voice a little hopeful. "Well, if you need to take your mind off it, y'know, need someone to be around, style of fing, I'm willing to--"

There came the sudden sound of broken glass. Angua raised her head.

Gaspode plunged on. "I think there are extenuating circumstances for end-of-the-world scenarios such as those we have here..." 

The air was split with a terrified scream. 

Copper instincts took over. Angua leaped forward, instantaneously at a run, the badge glinting at her collar. Gaspode watched her go and heaved a sigh.

"It's the end of the world," he muttered. "And she's still gonna sort it out one person at a time before they come kick everyone off."

  
  


The man who'd broken into the flat didn't see anything coming. He was too busy with strips of fabric -- tightening one around the girl's mouth, loosening another somewhere else.

And so the blunt impact from behind caught him completely by surprise.

There was a growl after he fell heavily to the ground, and then he screamed -- it was even shriller than the girl's, because he'd just seen the flash of angry eyes that were far too _aware_ to belong to any ordinary wolf.

He got up to run, and Angua leaped up again with a snarl.

She'd had a good moment to see what was happening before she'd... announced her presence. Only years of fighting werewolf impulses kept her from simply raking him open. As it was, she snapped her fangs a hair's breadth from his nose, and pinned him to the floor with claws she knew were digging into his chest; blood began to ooze beneath her paws, and she didn't care. All her thoughts had distilled into the feral growl rising in her throat.

Then it died in a whine of pain as something jabbed into her right side.

She rolled away to see moonlight glint off a knife in the man's hand, and an almost manic look as he stabbed out again, nearly randomly, at this mad beast who'd interrupted something even more beastly.

Angua twisted away and struck out again, passing through that silvery patch of light that streamed in through the shattered window.

The girl on the floor let out a muffled shriek as the werewolf's silhouette went by.

Angua bit down hard on the man's arm, forcing him to drop the knife. He growled out in pain himself, collapsing to the floor as Angua gnawed harder. 

Sometimes she could get away with this, and stop before it went too far. But something ancient was spinning outward in her brain....

The salty taste of blood screamed at her, hitting nerves she'd tried to forget she had, waking more of the animal under the surface. There was a horrible moment when she just wanted to let it out. And then the man, trying to wrench away from her, pulled her out of the patch of moonlight and back into ambiguous shadow. Something still human and lucid in her head said, _This isn't how you do it...._

Angua reached for every ounce of will she had, let go, and after a terrifying snarl of disgust, she stood up into the light. 

The queasy moment of morphic dislocation was just as bad for Angua's audience as it was for her. The man let out small whimpers of terror as she went through the in-between, and then again as that undefinable shape resolved into a woman, trembling with anger.

"You," she ground out, "are pathetic...."

And a fist, more or less human, whipped out to knock him senseless.

He dropped silently to the floor.

Angua spun around, trying to ignore the bleeding gash in her side. The captured girl was resourceful; she'd managed to loosen the bindings around her hands, and had been tugging at the one around her mouth before Angua turned to face her. At that point she stopped, hands at her face, starting to shake again.

Angua bent down and tore it off, more roughly than she'd meant. But the scent of blood in the room was strong, and her control was wavering....

"Arre you hurrrt?" she asked, hearing more rough-edged syllables in the words than should have been there.

"I... I... no...." The girl could barely get the words out.

Something in Angua twisted painfully as she realized how terrified the girl was of her. Another part was reacting in another way entirely to the fear, and was clawing forward for dominance. She tried to take a breath and steady herself. 

"You'd better go," she managed. "Find somewhere safe."

The girl stared and then scrambled backwards, her eyes never leaving Angua's wavering form. She got to the doorway and paused there, back flat against the wall, one shaky hand reaching for the knob...

Angua shuddered and growled, "Get ouuutttt...."

The girl pushed the door open and fled into the night.

Angua fell forward into wolf form and slashed her claws down the wall, leaving deep, ragged gashes over a foot long. And then she turned back to the fallen man.

And tried, very hard, just to breathe.

## continued in chapter 3.... ##


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3, wherein Angua deals with the aftermath of last night's events. This is also the place where I broke my own rule and diverged entirely from her POV in two scenes. Both just sort of happened. What's odd is how easy the Vetinari scene was to write; I'm not sure what that says about the way my mind works....

Note that for ease of scrolling, any footnotes are in brackets shortly after the sentence in question. Not quite as authentic, but also not quite so annoying. [note: re-uploaded to tweak a couple bits of dialogue.]

* * *

The next morning, a prisoner slept in the cells under the Watch house, having been administered a rather potent medication and a long, sensible talk about wolves and young policewomen, and the unreliable nature of memory after a concussion and loss of blood.

Angua's report, shorter and mercilessly honest, sat in Vimes's inbox. He'd read it twice, then put it back, as if the third time he picked it up, it would say something different.

She was fraying at the edges. But then, so was he.

He'd visited the Patrician yesterday, for a largely uninformative update on the progress of the mission. Vetinari had little to say that Vimes couldn't have guessed: they're approaching their destination, there've been a few bumps along the way, but the ship is holding together very well and everything is proceeding as hoped, so more news will be forthcoming as it develops, thank you.

Well, he hadn't guessed the bit about the Librarian stowing away in the ship, but he supposed he ought to have.

Vimes rubbed his face with both hands, trying to focus. He still hadn't slept much. The story about the Librarian kept nagging at him, mostly because of the unplanned stopover it had required. He didn't want to think about telling Angua about this. 

After all, unexpected danger was one thing. That happened to all of them, all the time. Stopping on the moon was something else entirely. He wasn't sure she could take that bit of news without snapping.

Vimes got up from his desk and stalked over to the window, staring out across the city. If this mission doesn't work, he thought, the wizards say this will all just... disintegrate. Disappear. The words themselves sent prickles up and down his spine, although the concept was still too big, too unbelievable, to wrap his head around. And he couldn't help but think that Carrot's phenomenal track record ought to give the Four Horsemen plenty of reason to rein in their steeds and tromp off back home before causing any trouble. Still, the possibility was there... and ultimately, in the face of all that, loss of personal control for a moment or two wouldn't really matter. But he knew it mattered to Angua. He'd seen it in her face when she came in, after her visit to Igor; there was a sort of suppressed despair, something close to self-loathing, as she grimly reported what she'd found and what she'd done about it.

He understood her actions better than she'd have thought, but just then he'd suspected empathy wouldn't have reached her. It might, he thought darkly, have made it even worse.

Even in the face of apocalypse, he thought, it's still the private crises that define us....

Vimes walked back to his desk -- empty but for Angua's report -- and slowly stubbed out his cigar. The Watch was out in its usual force, oblivious to what was brewing at the Hub, and that was just as well. The paperwork was filed, the administrivia dealt with, his blasted meetings even over for the day. The city was running just as it should, for the time being.

Or, not to put too fine a point on it, for whatever amount of time they had.

Vimes looked around his office. For that moment, his job here was done. It was time to go home to Sibyl for a while.

He walked out, closed the door and went downstairs.

  
  


Far away from the Watch house, games of Fate and Destiny were deciding the future of the world.

One sword slashed neatly through a falling die; another, short and plain and very sharp, made its point without being used at all. Heroes faced off under the gaze of the gods; some were destined to die, but they'd be damned if they didn't do it on their own terms. And in the words of the saga to come, whether or not fire was actually returned to the gods, whether or not the old heroes were victorious, they would, at least in legend, continue forever.

It ended in a spectacular explosion -- but not, ultimately, the crack of final doom.

For the other heroes, who had after all saved the world, it was a long, bumpy ride back to the city. And what could loosely be termed a splash-down * in the Ankh.

And then, the tricky matter of the homecoming.

  
  


[* In the Ankh, you don't exactly splash. Splut, perhaps. Or on bad days, thud.]

  
  


"Sergeant!" 

Angua, who'd pulled desk duty after her injury and was staring blearily at a stack of crime-scene iconographs, straightened up and winced, putting one hand to her side. She wasn't even sure why she'd _bothered_ to straighten up. The unmistakably high-pitched voice belonged to Corporal Buggy Swires, a gnome, who'd only have been at eye-level if she'd been lying flat on her stomach.

"Yes, Corporal?"

His riding heron, still sitting on the windowsill, flapped its wings once as Buggy made a beeline across the floor and away from possible foot traffic. The Watch house had been equipped with all sorts of little staircases and pedestals, under what Carrot had cheerfully termed Ease of Access modifications -- sort of like the not-a-dog door he'd thoughtfully rigged for her long ago -- but she knew Buggy was less concerned with Ease of Access than he was with Ease of Remaining Vertical.

The thought temporarily derailed her again.

Don't think of Carrot, don't think of Carrot....

"Sergeant, news from Air Patrol," Buggy said, snapping off a textbook salute. "What looks like a huge metal bird just came crashin' down on the river."

Angua involuntarily jerked forward, not caring this time as Igor's stitches pulled tight. "What?"

"I tailed it in as soon as I saw it," Swires said. "The folks around had only nicked a few bits by the time I got there, 'n mostly they're just gawping. I can't tell what the thing was or what it was doing there...."

"Did you see any of the passengers? Were they hurt?"

He nodded quickly at the first, shook his head at the second. "Saw three men and what I swore was a monkey -- couldn't see their faces, but one looked an awful lot like--" 

Angua leapt out of her seat, remembered just in time to shout, "Thank you, Corporal!" over her shoulder, and ran headlong for the door without even bothering to ask for directions to the scene.

She knew who was there. She could just follow her nose.

  
  


Of course, Angua thought moments later in some disgust, if I'd been _thinking,_ I would have followed the scent _away_ from the river....

She'd found her trail immediately, that clear, sharp scent she knew so well -- tinged with something dusty and odd, yet weirdly familiar -- but she'd made it all the way down along the edge of the Shades to the Ankh Bridge before she realized her mistake: the scent trail headed in the opposite direction.

Clearly, she'd found the crash site. Whoever had been in the pilot's seat had aimed for the straightest uninterrupted stretch of river they could get, and had come down right by Pearl Dock, where the half-submerged shape of the flying machine was still visible in the gloop. She stared in some awe at Leonard's work, or what was left of it, not noticing how the crowds around her -- possibly from nearby Cockbill Street -- shied away from her gleaming badge and pretended fiercely that they'd only been, er, _looking_ at the various other metallic bits lying about in the vicinity. *

[ * Which, in many cases, was probably true. Stealing would have been tantamount to admitting that they needed things they couldn't pay for, and that -- although also true -- was not a Cockbill Street sort of thing to do. On the other hand, pride could be safely quashed for a _salvage_ operation every now and then. ]

But she'd arrived too late. If the passengers had walked out of this, they'd have made their way quite far away by now....

Angua swore under her breath and turned to sprint back up the street. Her side ached fiercely, and the relative slowness of her human feet made her wish she could just lope away on all fours....

But even if the moon had been out to aid her, she wasn't sure that was a good idea.

So she kept running, darting between surprised onlookers, following the trail back to the location that should have been obvious, and would, to her infinite annoyance, have been a much shorter run.

When the Patrician's palace guards tried to halt her at the gate for their usual questions, she just shoved them aside with slightly more than human strength, growled "Watch business," and silently dared them to make an issue of it as she darted inside.

They'd seen the look in her eyes. They didn't.

  
  


Up in the Oblong Office, the debriefing was already well underway. 

Crowded into the room was the _Kite's_ crew (and their simian stowaway), as well as the wizards from Mission Control, and Commander Vimes, who had been summoned from home as soon as the news had reached the palace. The rest of the original committee members had not yet been invited. Lord Vetinari planned to give them the short version. That looked as though it might be a difficult thing to assemble.

"And just so I understand -- the Horde voluntarily sacrificed themselves to stop the chain of events they themselves started?"

"Yes, sir."

"Wouldn't it have been simpler _not_ to start the fuse?"

"I believe they had a change of heart at the last minute, sir."

Vetinari leaned back in his chair, looking over his assembled... heroes, for lack of a better term. Captain Carrot, in the center of the room, was the only one who looked the part. He stood tall and perfectly composed, with his helmet still held under one arm. But Leonard, distracted as ever, was busy with a notepad and kept murmuring things like "I must capture the right arc of water over the Rim..." under his breath. Rincewind had shuffled back toward a corner and was trying to avoid the attentions of Ponder Stibbons, who had his own notepad and was already trying to scribble down something about trajectory, speed and what the velocity must have been at the moment of Ankh-bound collision. The Librarian, for his part, had been given a banana, and all was right with his world.

Vetinari sighed just a little. The hero was passing off credit to a band of barbarians, and the others had transmuted a world-saving effort into an alchemical experiment. At least, with everyone seemingly unwilling to confess to any acts of bravery, he wouldn't have any trouble officially establishing that this entire escapade did not, in fact, occur.

"So, Captain," he said at last, "might I assume that... someone inspired them to change their minds and descend the mountain with the explosives before detonation?"

"Oh, that was the minstrel, sir," Carrot said honestly, stepping right around Vetinari's suggestion. "He reminded them that no one would live to remember their deeds if the world, um, ended."

"Man has always sought to live forever," Leonard said absently to his sketchpad. "But Mr. Cohen clearly saw that his lifetime alone was not sufficient, compared to the power of a saga...."

Vetinari stared, eyes slightly narrowed. Rarely, if ever, had he heard anyone call Cohen the Barbarian a _mister _with such an utter lack of sarcasm. 

"If I might interrupt," said Ridcully, not bothering to wait for permission, "we seem to be missing a segment of this story. What of the gods? Are we to believe that this entire -- ahem, _saga_ played out under their noses without intervention?"

"Oh, they intervened," Rincewind muttered. "They probably would've been happy to see us all on The Wheelchair Ride of Doom."

Vetinari, very briefly, caught Carrot's eyes, then looked away. Somehow he doubted very much indeed that the gods were done with his Watch captain.

Carrot either missed or intentionally ignored the glance. "In fact," he said unhappily, as he looked behind him to the contentedly doodling da Quirm, "they set out a few tasks...."

Before he could get any further, the door flew open. Everyone jumped and spun around to look, except for Vetinari. He merely sat forward a bit, steepled his fingers, and said calmly to the force of nature who'd just stormed in, "Welcome, Sergeant Angua. I suppose I don't need to ask how you found us?"

He was well aware of her tracking skills, but it was meant to be a double entendre. He turned the other half of it on Vimes in a piercing glare. The Commander merely stared back, eyebrows raised, and gave him a "what could I do?" shrug.

Angua, windblown and breathless, looked around her, suddenly overwhelmed by the crowd. She clearly hadn't expected this many people. "I -- ah...."

"Angua!" Carrot exclaimed, reaching toward her, then he noticed the crowd around them too, and blushed as he dropped his hand. "I meant to tell you before...."

"I see you need to catch up on events," Vetinari said smoothly. "Perhaps I should continue this conversation with the wizards for now, and complete the analysis of the flight itself. I have no doubt I'll be further informed on the Horde's confrontation with the gods the next time a bard wanders astray over the Brass Bridge and into the attention of my guards. And perhaps I'll also hear about the... incidental parts played by a wizard, an inventor and a Watchman."

"Ook."

"And a Librarian," Vetinari said, not missing a beat.

Angua stared at Carrot, who was still looking at her as if he wanted to say something of immense importance, but couldn't in this company. Vetinari glanced again at Vimes, attempting to communicate with a look, _You may want to escort your Watchmen home to continue _ their_ conversation elsewhere...._

Sir Samuel Vimes could, on occasion, be very perceptive. "Captain, Sergeant... I believe that means we're back on the clock."

"Indeed," Vetinari murmured. "Now that the city you watch is in no immediate peril, other than that which you face every day...."

Angua gave him an eerily intense look, her eyes bright as the moon and just as unfathomable, before saying, "Sir..." and turning away. Her hand, after its brief salute, had dropped lightly onto Carrot's arm.

Vetinari watched the three members of the City Watch quietly leave the Office, and take a peculiar amount of pressure out with them; it was as if the entire room had let out a sigh. Even the Librarian looked relieved. It took a long moment for the Patrician to push aside the sense that he'd just been under the scrutiny of something almost as primal as the forces they'd been discussing moments before. 

And then he sighed, leaned his elbows on the desk, and said, "Before we continue, would anyone else like a banana?"

## continued in chapter 4.... ##


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 -- homecoming and breakdown....

* * *

Angua was almost silent on the walk back, fighting a thousand questions that were all jostling for attention in her head. Carrot had plenty to say to fill the space, and proceeded to do so as they ticked away the blocks back to Pseudopolis Yard.

"...and Leonard's penance is to paint the entire world on the ceiling of the Temple of Small Gods," he said, shaking his head. "He only has ten years."

"Perhaps he'll view it as a challenge," Angua said distantly.

"Yes... he does seem to be doing a lot of sketching. It'll take time to prepare." As they rounded a corner, Carrot glanced up at the sky, smiling suddenly. Angua followed his gaze up into the dense smog. "Oh, it's so good to feel the sun again!"

She peered at him, a little dazed, then turned a look at Vimes, who just rolled his eyes a little. Somehow, despite all the evidence stacked against him, Carrot managed to stay idealistic, even down to the gritty details of day to day life.

Then again, he'd just gone up against the gods -- and won....

She looked at him again and shivered a little. Maybe it was a win, anyway. If Leonard had such a task in front of him, what did they have in mind for Carrot?

He returned her look, noticed the shivering, and then he frowned, seeing the way she twitched away from the tension that created in her side. "Angua, are you hurt?"

She shook her head to try to dismiss it, but couldn't help but rub the bandaged area once. Vimes, seeing her fight with the words, broke in with, "She had a bit of a run-in last night with a man with a knife...."

Carrot stopped where he stood. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Igor took care of me the next morning. I'll be good as new."

Carrot let out a sigh of relief. "Well, that's good. Igor does such marvelous work, doesn't he?"

Again, she couldn't help but give Carrot a look. Some men, on hearing news like this, would hassle and fuss and repeatedly ask if she was _sure_ she was all right. Carrot jumped right ahead to believing her. She wasn't sure if that was more or less annoying.

He started walking again, then stopped and turned, frowning just a little. "Wasn't last night a full moon?"

Her voice went quiet. "Day after...."

"Didn't you stay, you know, _changed_ after? Because I thought it would heal faster if --"

"Never _mind,_ Carrot," she said, trying to push down a shudder.

Vimes once again heard the irregularity in her voice and turned to the younger man, trying to guide him off the subject. Angua ducked her head, silently thanking him several times over. "Captain, I imagine you're going to want to wind down once you get back...."

"Yes." He looked a little sheepish. "I hate to ask, but I'd been wondering, since you said we were back on the clock, if I really needed to --"

"Oh, gods, no, not today. Go back to the Watch house and rest. The two of you need to --" He waved his hand in some indeterminate, all-encompassing direction."You know. Talk."

That was the plan, such as it was, but it didn't go easily. As soon as they got in, Carrot was bombarded with greetings and questions. Angua found a seat and perched awkwardly on it, watching the spectacle, as Carrot began to modestly recount the tale for everyone at once. She noticed he kept glancing at her, though, and couldn't shake the feeling that he was editing.

"I'm sure there's more to this," she muttered to Vimes, who was standing next to her again. "He's still leaving bits out."

"If you were in his position, with _this _ audience...."

She cracked a smile, watching Nobby as he posed a colorful version of the question of just how a privy works in zero gravity. * 

[ *Someone ALWAYS asks. ]

Before Carrot was subjected to giving the technical explanation, Vimes stepped forward to face the crowd. "Listen, folks," he said loudly. "As fascinating as this story is, since the world has obviously failed to come to a screeching stop, we've still got work to do out there. Where's my taskforce on the Draper case?"

With some reluctance, the crowd began to disperse and reform into normal workday activity. Carrot gave Vimes a grateful look, which he acknowledged with a short nod. Angua noticed as he did so that Vimes looked oddly revitalized, as if the thought of ordinary, everyday disasters, the sort he knew how to deal with, had refocused his energies.

She, on the other hand, just wanted to go collapse.

"Come on," Carrot said, supporting her arm with one hand. "Let's go upstairs."

Angua shut Carrot's door behind her after they'd entered his room, and leaned back against it as he shed his bag and assorted gear onto the floor. Her eyes lingered on the bag, a frown pricking at her lips. There was that dusty smell again....

She forgot it as Carrot gently pulled her down to sit beside him on the bed, and they spent a comfortable few minutes proving to each other how glad they were to be sharing the other's company, under a sky that no longer threatened to fall in on everything.

It lasted until Carrot had to break off a kiss for a long yawn, and then an embarrassed laugh. Angua smiled a little at his apology and helped ease him into the bed. He was asleep within moments.

She sat on the chair beside the bed, watching him breathe, and before she realized what she was doing, she'd closed her eyes and dropped off to sleep as well.

  
  


Moonlight woke her later, like a gentle kiss on the cheek, a subtle, seductive hand over her hair.

She blinked her eyes open, wincing at the stiffness in her limbs. She'd been asleep for hours, in a chair hardly comfortable enough for a brief sit-down. Gingerly she tried to rise, feeling utterly ill at ease in her own body.

Carrot still slept as well, but he appeared completely comfortable. His face looked so gentle in this light, she thought; his skin nearly glowed. She reached forward to trace the line of his jaw with two fingers, watching him smile and shift slightly under her touch.

And then she saw her nails glinting like claws.

She gasped and pulled her hand away, shaking it fiercely as if she could make the incongruity just fall away. Her head had begun to throb with pain. Why, she thought, why now....

She took a few deep breaths. Calm descended slowly, and she held herself utterly still, trying to center herself. It was harder than it should have been. Her senses, somehow, felt filled with dust. She closed her eyes and saw clouds of it, a storm of gray, sweeping plains of pock-marked emptiness....

She stepped back, and bumped into Carrot's bag.

The sack tipped over. She looked at the spill, eyes growing wide. She saw nothing that unusual, and yet she wanted to recoil from it: notepads, clothes, what looked like a banana peel that had been stuffed in by mistake....

And something else, there at the bottom.

Angua knelt on the floor, reaching out with trembling fingers.

It was small. Nondescript. A lump of gray, dry rock, rough on the surface, flaking bits of dust away....

A rock, that's all it was. A small, plain stone. Yet she stared at it with a mix of terror and temptation, and her hand shook fiercely as it hovered above the... thing. 

Her blood pounded in her ears, shutting out all other sound. Her sight blurred down to the narrow image of the stone. And she watched in a distant sort of horror as her fingers bent and clenched around it.

Just a stone.

But the sudden, horrible shock at contact jerked her head back, making her roar out in primal agony.

Her body shuddered forward, fighting for its shape; muscles clenched and spasmed, fangs erupted, claws stretched out, too long, too long. The wolf howled out, demanding release. But the hand -- the hand gripped tighter, breaking off bits of the rock, refusing to release --

She felt something grip her from behind, and she snarled, striking out as hard as she could; but it was all instinct, no thought, and she could barely control her actions. A leg kicked out, smashing the chair. Snatches of sight gave her a shattered window. And then she spun and slashed back, and there was blood, too much blood....

But the hands just held her tighter.

She wanted to scream, but that was a human thing, and whatever she was, that wasn't an option. She was in that horrible in-between, not woman or wolf, and her thoughts couldn't center on either....

One hand let go of her right shoulder. Some sort of sound rose from her throat, and her own hand whipped up in a deadly arc, like the punch last night, but fiercer, with no restraint at all --

A hand clenched around her forearm before it could hit its target. Her muscles strained against it, but it -- he -- was too strong....

"Let go," someone said.

Her human self knew the voice, and wanted to cry. The rest of her, still spitting and snarling, fought back, finding a reserve of strength nearly enough to break the man's arm....

The man. This man. Thought intruded on the roaring in her head, trying to give him a name. Not an attacker, not fighting her, not at all -- just holding her.

"Angua. Let go."

Her hand, still clenched into a fist, shook so badly below his grip that the fingers began to loosen. Crumbled rock drifted down through silver light, drifted into gleaming motes of dust, infintesimal fragments of the moon.

His grip loosened just a fraction. Her breath came back in short, terrified gulps; she choked on the dust, spitting flecks of gray and red, the latter from human gums split by canine teeth. She felt like a beast, something too horrible to contemplate. But the touch now was almost tender, pulling her close.

She had to stop; she had to think....

Realization came back like a shock of lightning. Her fingers uncurled. 

The moon rock fell to the floor. Carrot swiftly lifted Angua, in human form now and sobbing, into his arms, and carried her out of the room and past the concerned Watchmen in the halls, not saying a word.

Just holding her.

  
## concluded in chapter 5.... ## 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Carrot and Angua, and a long conversation by moonlight.

This was tricky. I hope you enjoy. :)

* * *

  


Angua sat silently in the infirmary as Carrot cleaned and bandaged the wounds she'd made across his chest; he hadn't wanted to bother Igor to do it. There were five deep gouges across his skin, in a long, ragged diagonal slash. Guilt raged in her at his every wince; each time, he tried to pretend he hadn't done it, and he'd look back at her as if in apology.

How can you apologize to _me? _ she wanted to scream. _I _ did this to you... me... I could have killed you without thinking....

She looked down at her lap, where she'd folded her ruined clothes into a small pile. She'd found a dressing robe in the corner and was wearing that instead, huddled into the overly-large swath of soft cloth as if she could disappear into it.

Carrot at last finished with the final strip of gauze, set down his scissors and sat down beside her. She tried not to edge away. "I can take those for you," he said quietly.

Angua said nothing, but slowly handed him the pile. Carrot took the shreds of fabric and stepped out of the room to dispose of them somewhere.

She watched him go, then wandered out of the room in a different direction. She needed some air.

The roof of Pseudopolis Yard was cool gray slate, smooth under her feet as she slowly walked out and sat on the gentle slope, and hugged her knees to her chest. Cool night air ruffled her hair, and blew past high, thin clouds above her, obscuring and revealing edges of the moon as she watched. 

It took Carrot a long time to find her up there. When he did, the relief on his face made her heart ache. "Angua..." he sighed. 

She knew what she wanted to ask, but couldn't quite look at him as she did so. "You were up there," she said, "weren't you?"

He gingerly made his way across the roof and sat down beside her, not too close. "Yes. We had to stop for air and fuel, and the moon was the only option. I meant to tell you, but wasn't sure how."

She rested her forehead against her knees. "And you brought bits of it home."

"The wizards wanted samples. Ponder did, mostly. They're researching -- found it fascinating... I just -- I didn't realize...."

Angua looked up at him. He'd found another shirt and had pulled it hastily over his head, but the fabric was really too thin for a night this cold, and she could see the bandages through it. The untucked edges flapped in the breeze. But he didn't shiver, didn't flinch, even when she turned her moon-bright eyes on him.

"What was it like?"

He stared back at her, opening his mouth to start, then closed it again and thought. Finally he said, "There were dragons. Reminded me of Errol, really... I'll have to tell Lady Sybil about it. And you can't really walk up there -- everything's lighter, so you have to bounce." He looked up, letting out a long, slow sigh. "And the view...."

She sat quietly, waiting. Carrot wasn't much with words sometimes, but she could tell he was formulating something, and she didn't want to interrupt.

"It was astounding. The _scale_ of it all -- I mean, we've all heard about the elephants, but when you actually see them and you can't even fit one _ear_ into your vision... it's too much to take in. And the world itself...."

He trailed off again, lost in thought. Angua looked down at her robe, and picked off a piece of lint. That, she thought faintly as she watched it blow away, was small, to a person. Grains of sand, flecks of dust, drops of blood... miniscule. But viewed from above, a person, compared to the massive scale of the world, was just that small -- or even smaller.

Did the gods look down at people that way? Had Carrot, even for an instant, felt that?

"I took iconographs, though that really doesn't do it justice. Leonard's got them now for reference. He's been painting non-stop, ever since we got off the _Kite_ up there and looked around."

"I suppose he'll do well with the temple painting, then," Angua said distantly, thinking of the task he'd been given. 

Carrot looked at her, clearly still worried about the old artist, but nodded a little. "I don't know if the gods can underestimate anyone, but Blind Io seemed rather taken aback at his -- enthusiasm... maybe he'll be surprised."

He stopped when he realized Angua's shoulders were shaking. He gingerly touched her right shoulder; she raised her head, revealing that she was laughing, a bit hysterically. "You don't get to do this, Carrot."

"What?"

"Talk about the gods like you were just visiting the neighbors." Her voice shook behind the smile. "Oh, yes, I just popped into Dunmanifestin the other day, chatted with Offler, borrowed a cup of sugar...."

"He speaks with a lisp around those teeth, you know."

Angua stifled a scream of frustration behind one hand. Carrot winced and murmured, "I'm sorry...."

"Normal people," she managed at last, "normal people live in awe and terror of the gods."

"Oh, believe me, I do fear them. They're so.. capricious."

"But you walked away," Angua said. "You faced down the gods, and the men determined to destroy the world, and you walked away."

"I don't think they actually meant to destroy the world," Carrot said thoughtfully. "They didn't know it would have blown the magic field apart -- they just meant to conquer the gods. They made the right choice, in the end."

Angua sat silently. Carrot could dodge anything in a conversation, given the chance. 

She bit her lip and looked up again at the waning moon. Carrot followed her gaze. They both sat quietly for a long moment before Carrot spoke again."It's so beautiful up there," he said softly. "I wish you could have seen it."

Angua folded her arms across her knees and hid her eyes again. "Oh, _Carrot._ Didn't you see -- look at what that _did_ to me."

His hand touched her shoulder again. She tried not to cringe away from it. "I didn't know --"

"You didn't think!" she snapped, suddenly angry. "You don't have to! You -- you just walk in and make things work, no matter where you are, and the rest of us... I mean, I fell to pieces over a damned _rock!"_

She thrust out her hand, daring him to stare at her palm. She hadn't let him see it until now. She'd scrubbed it so hard to get rid of any traces of lunar dust that the skin was red and raw, and scabs had formed where the crumbling rock had sliced into her skin. She was still terrified that some of it had seeped into her blood -- she couldn't bear to think of what it might do if it had. 

Emotions crowded over Carrot's face. Eventually he looked down, tore a strip of fabric off his shirt, and began to gently wrap the damaged skin. She blinked through a sudden haze of tears.

"I never wanted you to see me like that," she said, her voice breaking. 

"Like what?" he said softly, cradling her small hand between his large, strong fingers. 

"You know what I mean! That -- that thing in between... I _hurt_ you, Carrot, and...."

"You didn't. That wasn't you, not really."

"But it's part of me." She could hardly get the words out. "You know that, Carrot. I could lose control like that again."

"But you always fight it. You fought tonight. And the moon rock was my fault, not yours," Carrot said, eyes downcast. 

She bowed her head before he could see the look on her face. He meant it, he really did. He actually had the nerve to feel guilty that she'd snapped. And she knew he'd probably go on looking away anytime she changed, pretend that nothing had happened, that nothing was different between them. But she wasn't sure she would ever forget those gashes across his chest, or the terrible feeling that had welled up inside her when she'd smelled his blood.

And she would never, ever tell him about it.

"Every moonlit night, I worry," she said, her voice as emotionless as she could make it. "I've drawn myself lines that I never want to cross. Sometimes I'm just so afraid I'll forget where they are. It... doesn't just require a piece of the moon in my hand, you know."

Still holding her hand between his, Carrot turned and looked back at the sky. He didn't speak for a long time, and then it wasn't exactly a reply. "I thought of you, up there," he said. "I was looking out at the world, trying to take it all in... it's so huge, and so -- fragile, and it's impossible not to realize how much we need to take care of it."

His voice had gone distant, and a little strange. "I felt so responsible. You can't look across all that and not feel it. But from here" -- he loosed one hand to gesture across the city skyline -- "it's a better perspective. From that high above, it's too distant. From here you can still see the people."

Undermining the moment slightly was the noise of someone at street level tripping over a crate and cursing. Carrot glanced down, but didn't otherwise react.

She watched him there for a moment, while he absently caressed her hand with his thumb. Yes, that's your control issue, isn't it, thought Angua. You know you could be _up _ there, oh so easily. But you stay a Watchman to keep it from getting away from you. 

That's the line you've drawn. And I've seen it get pushed a few times, too.

Nothing really showed in his face, but she wondered if he was thinking this too. Sometimes he wasn't much with words, but other times he was trickier than he let on.

She shivered in the breeze. Carrot moved closer. With all the thoughts swirling in her head, somehow the safest to speak aloud was a joke, weak though it was. "I can just imagine the headline in the _Times_ ," she said. " 'Watchman Conquers Moon; Prefers the Ankh-Morpork Rooftops.'"

He turned back to give her a faint smile. And when he spoke, the words startled her. Carrot, she'd thought before, was hardly a romantic; he was kind and loving and always cared, but the grand gestures never seemed to occur to him. This time, though, he placed his free hand against her cheek and said softly, "The only person I've ever seen conquer the moon is you."

She stared back, swallowing hard, seeing the entire world before her in his eyes. For that moment, she would have believed anything he said, followed him anywhere.

And then he gently reached around her shoulders with that arm and pulled her close for a kiss, clasping her damaged hand to the scored skin over his heart.

Above them, clouds blew across the ancient face of the moon, leaving them for now in a shifting pattern of shadow and pure silver light.  
  


##


End file.
